Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone. Last Friday night, my local hockey team, the Missouri Mavericks of the CHL, hosted a Star Wars Night. They handled it very well, and the game was great, since the Mavs beat St Charles Chill 6-1. I had a good time.

The first thing that impressed me was the fact that I learned about the event because someone from the Mavericks contacted the game club I'm part of - the Roleplayers Guild of Kansas City - to see if our members might be interested. Nice outreach there. In the end, I think only two of us were able to make it, but they might still get a group together later.

Finding more information about Star Wars Night was a bit challenging - it wasn't on their website that I could find, but they did do some promotions through social media, and it might have been a late addition to the schedule.

Then, there was this:

Yes, there is a player named Obi on the team. And, like something in a script, Obi was the highest scoring player of the night, with 2 of the 6 Mavs goals. You can see all of the goals below.

One thing that was cool about this game is that I'm guessing the majority of those in costume were from the KC area, and the R2 Unit might have been built at the local R2 Builder's Club (maybe, maybe not, its not listed on their events page). Random internet tangent... it turns out, there is an R2 Builder's Club magazine.

Update: The Scout Trooper pictured below contacted me and confirmed that most of the costumed charaters were part of the 70th Explorers Garrison of the 501st legion, representing Kansas and Missouri.

Here are a few pictures from the evening...

Enemies in the ConcourseMovie and EU characters in attendance. The Mavs also sold some Mavericks branded telescoping lightsabers (or light sword?). I didn't get a real good look at one, but during the opening and team introduction, you could see many waving around in the darkened arena. I totally missed the opening crawl, stuck in a concession line.

Boba isn't very subtle tonight.

They re-made most of their in-game graphics to have a Star Wars like font and theme. They replaced their normal movie clips for goals scored, etc. with Star Wars ones. Several of the fan participation contests also took on a Star Wars theme.

They also had a costume contest, won by the youngest girl in a Princess Leia costume.

The costume contest. The pros took a back seat to the other contestants, and the horse is the Mavs mascot. You have no idea how hard it was to get a remotely in focus picture using my phone zoom.Even the Scout Trooper got a new ride for the occasion. Do I need to make Zamboni Trooper stats now? Maybe the Empire just wanted to turn Hoth into a giant ice rink.

Somehow, the motion blur seems extremely appropriate.So, it was a good time. Hopefully the Mavs will try it again next year.